


Just Keep Me Close

by syriala



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Good Peter Hale, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Peter Hale & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 13:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17601941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syriala/pseuds/syriala
Summary: Stiles takes Peter’s one time cuddling as blanket permission. He doesn’t always feel like cuddling, sometimes he’s just happy to curl up in Peter’s bed or on his couch and he leaves without ever saying a word to Peter. But it happens more and more that he makes a questioning noise, eyes wide and pleading, and Peter is so very weak for his boy.





	Just Keep Me Close

Peter growls before he even slides the key into the lock. He can smell Stiles everywhere, and that shouldn’t be. At all.

Peter kept his new apartment a secret for a reason.

But Stiles had no doubt been there, and, as Peter focuses his hearing, he is still in his apartment. Peter wants to do nothing more than slam open his door and demand that Stiles leaves, right the fuck now, but he takes a deep breath and then opens his door in a much more controlled way.

He puts his keys in his bowl, eyes straining for any movement of Stiles, and Peter frowns when there is nothing that indicates that Stiles is moving at all. If his heartbeat wasn’t so steady, Peter would be worried by now.

Peter makes his way into the living-room, eyes rapidly checking the room, but it still takes him a moment to find Stiles. He’s on the couch, but not sprawled out like he usually is in the loft. Instead, Stiles is curled up small, taking up as little space as he possibly can with his long limbs, and he’s desperately clutching onto the blanket that’s thrown over his shoulders.

Peter completely deflates when he sees Stiles like that, protest and harsh words dying on his tongue, and instead he sighs. Stiles’ eyes flick over to him, big and miserable and Peter doesn’t know what to do. He’s not good with comfort; never has been and the fire hadn’t made him any kinder.

“What are you doing here?” Peter softly asks, passing by Stiles on his way to the bedroom to change into something more comfortable.

He doesn’t fight the instinct to drag his hand through Stiles’ hair and he’s rewarded with a shaky shudder as Stiles’ presses his eyes to his knees.

“Don’t throw me out,” Stiles whispers into the blanket, and Peter rolls his eyes.

He would never throw out anyone that miserable. He wasn’t _that_ cold-hearted.

“What’s going on?” Peter asks instead of replying to Stiles.

But it seems like that one sentence was all that Stiles was capable of at the moment because he stays silent and unresponsive. He doesn’t move, doesn’t talk, doesn’t even look at Peter when he starts to prepare dinner and Peter almost misses it when he slips out silently.

Peter stares after him for a long while, before he shrugs it off and saves his steak.

~*~*~

It keeps happening. After a few weeks Peter starts to find Stiles in his bed and Peter doesn’t know what to do with that. Everything in his den smells like Stiles, and like misery, and Peter can’t say that he is a fan of that combination.

But he can tell that Stiles is gearing up for something, he gets more nervous and restless every time Peter comes home, but so far he hasn’t said anything. He doesn’t seem ready.

Until one evening he suddenly is.

“Peter?” Stiles asks, voice small and careful and Peter wishes there was something for him to punch to make Stiles feel better.

“Yes, darling?”

“Would you, I mean—could you—just for a little while—and you don’t have to, I don’t want to pressure you—you can say no—,” Stiles stammers and Peter fights the urge to roll his eyes.

“Sweetheart, you actually have to ask first,” Peter gently tells him when it seems like Stiles would just go on and on.

“Oh. Uh, I mean—I wanted to know—,” Stiles catches himself this time and takes a deep breath before he finally asks what he wants. “Would you maybe just hold me for a minute or two?”

Stiles sinks even deeper into the couch cushions, puffs up the blanket even more around him, and Peter doesn’t even hesitate a second. He’s up and walking across the room before Stiles actually stops talking, which clearly is a surprise to Stiles, if his wide eyes are anything to go by.

Peter pushes Stiles away from the armrest, sliding in between that and Stiles, and immediately pulls him onto his lap, blanket and everything. Stiles lets out a shuddering breath before he completely melts against Peter, tightly gripping his shirt.

Stiles keeps shaking, and he makes no intention to move away from Peter at all, not that Peter minds. He can finally do something for Stiles, and he is more than happy to do this for him.

~*~*~

Stiles takes Peter’s one time cuddling as blanket permission. He doesn’t always feel like cuddling, sometimes he’s just happy to curl up in Peter’s bed or on his couch and he leaves without ever saying a word to Peter. But it happens more and more that he makes a questioning noise, eyes wide and pleading, and Peter is so very weak for his boy.

He always slides in next to Stiles on the couch, or curls around him in bed, and he will never stop being amazed at how small Stiles can make himself, how trusting he curls into Peter, holding on and pressing close. Stiles can stay like that for hours if Peter lets him, and really, there’s no reason not to.

This is clearly something Stiles needs, doesn’t get anywhere else, and Peter will bite his tongue off before he ever tells Stiles that he has to leave. Peter suspects daddy issues, but he never brings it up, doesn’t want to upset Stiles any more than he clearly is on the days he comes over, and instead he just pulls him closer and snuffles into Stiles’ hair.

They fall asleep like that more often than not, Stiles carefully cradled protectively against Peter’s chest, and whenever he leaves afterwards, he seems happier, holds himself upright and tall. A startling contrast to how small he curls up when Peter has him in his arms, but it loosens something in Peter’s chest to see his boy like that.

~*~*~

Peter thinks things will change now. Stiles and Derek finally stopped circling around each other, admitted their feelings in a truly impressive shouting match before they started making out, and Peter thinks this is it.

He will never admit that he’s going to miss his boy; miss how trusting and soft he was in his arms, how protective he made Peter feel, but he guesses it’s only normal that Derek will take his place now.

So Peter is more than surprised when he comes home and the by now so familiar heartbeat greets him at the door.

“Why are you not with Derek?” Pete wants to know but he shuts his mouth when Stiles just whines at that, a sound so desperate it goes clear through Peter’s heart, and he’s on the couch a moment later.

Stiles didn’t say anything yet, but Peter is not going to wait and let his boy stew until he talks himself out of asking for it at all. Stiles doesn’t protest, curls up familiarly small and Peter sighs into his hair.

Derek is not going to like this, at all, but Peter will never deny his boy anything. He doesn’t ask again why Stiles doesn’t do this with Derek; he understands that sometimes not everyone can give you what you need, and maybe that is the case for Stiles right now.

~*~*~

Derek clearly doesn’t think the same, because he slams Peter against the wall the next time he’s at the loft.

“What are you doing with Stiles?” he growls in his face but Peter doesn’t react.

He’s certain that Derek will not hurt him, and so he just shrugs.

“Why don’t you ask him?” he asks Derek, whose eyes flash red at that.

“He won’t _tell me_!”

Peter can see how worried Derek is about that and he knows his nephew; Derek would never say it out loud, he’s too loyal for that, but deep down he fears that Stiles is cheating on him, will leave him eventually.

The Hale’s have a huge load of abandonment issues, and this is just the typical outcome of it.

“I can’t tell you either,” Peter softly says. “It’s his decision. But he’s not sleeping with me. He would never cheat on you; he loves you too much.”

“Then why won’t he let me help?” Derek desperately asks and Peter cups his neck.

“I don’t know, pup. I’ll talk to him.”

Derek whines, low and desperate, hurt that his mate wouldn’t talk to him, but he also nods, acknowledging Peter’s offer.

~*~*~

Stiles is stubborn; so stubborn in fact that Peter just wants to shake him for once when he just shakes his head at Peter’s question.

“Darling, he worries,” Peter tries again but Stiles hides his face in Peter’s chest and doesn’t reply.

Peter accepts the silence for almost ten minutes before he presses his point again.

“He cornered me last week, asking me if you were cheating on him,” Peter says, even though it’s not the complete truth.

Derek hadn’t outright stated his worries, but Peter knows they are there. And he’s not above playing dirty. Stiles goes stiff in his arms, and Peter is completely unhappy with that. He’s supposed to be soft and pliable when Peter holds him like that and he doesn’t like this at all.

“If you can’t tell him, why don’t you show him instead?” Peter tries again, because this situation needs a solution.

Derek will continue to think Stiles will leave him, making him pull away, which will just chase Stiles to Peter’s apartment more often. It’s a vicious circle and Peter doesn’t want that for them.

“Show him?” Stiles asks, voice scratch, bur clearly curious.

“Bring him here next time you come over. Show him what it is you do here. He won’t understand otherwise.”

“You don’t like people in your den.”

“I tolerate you, don’t I?” Peter teases and Stiles pokes his boney fingers into Peter’s sternum but he also goes soft against Peter again.

~*~*~

When Peter comes home this time, there are two heartbeats in his apartment. Peter allows himself a small smile before he steps into his living-room.

Stiles is curled up into the corner of the couch like he is so often, but Derek is sitting on the other end of the couch, a frown on his face and he turns a questioning gaze on Peter.

“Sweetheart,” Peter says to Stiles as he walks past him, slides his hand in a familiar gesture through Stiles’ hair and then does the same for Derek, greeting him with a low “Pup,” noticing how Derek relaxes at that.

Peter changes into sweatpants and a shirt, and when he comes back out Stiles is looking expectantly at him. Peter immediately smiles at him, gently pushes him over on the couch and slides into his usual spot behind Stiles, already accommodating for the fact that Stiles crawls into his lap almost as soon as he sits down.

Derek stares at him with wide eyes, but he keeps silent, watching them. Stiles curls up against Peter like he usually does, small and trusting, sheltered and protected, and Peter can smell how his scent goes from miserable and desperate to relaxed and happy.

Derek’s eyes go wide, so he clearly smells it too, and when Peter starts moving his thumb up and down Stiles’ arm, he nods lightly.

He gets it now.

~*~*~

Stiles and Derek keep showing up together. Peter’s den smells like pack, like family by now, and he revels in it.

Stiles needs hugs less and less the longer he is with Derek, but he still comes by all the time, Derek in tow, and he still presses close to Peter when they sit on the couch, but he loses the desperate edge to his actions.

Derek gets pulled in slowly; dragged close during cuddles, included in Peter’s and Stiles’ already established routines, and he loses his worried gaze, understands how Stiles and Peter work, that he doesn’t need to worry.

They are pack.


End file.
